Comcast is known for its low-key corporate culture. At its 58-story headquarters, the tallest building in Philadelphia, a boxy glass crown gleams conspicuously but anonymously.

Yet now, as the mass media behemoth lobbies aggressively backstage for federal regulatory approval of its $45 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable, Comcast is seeking to raise its public profile in New York in vivid fashion.

The out-of-towner wants to plant its name atop one of the city’s signature skyscrapers.

Comcast, which last year bought General Electric’s remaining 49 percent stake in NBCUniversal, applied for a “certificate of appropriateness” from the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission to replace G.E.’s 24-foot-high initials on 30 Rockefeller Plaza. G.E., now based in Fairfield, Conn., has long had a presence in New York.

Whether another name change will be embraced by the public is arguable. It’s been a quarter-century since the two glowing red letters were installed, yet many New Yorkers still refer to it as the RCA Building, after the company that founded the NBC network. The RCA name had capped the 70-story Manhattan landmark, which at 850 feet amounts to the city’s tallest billboard (the MetLife Building is considered second), for more than 50 years. When the original letters were first illuminated in 1937, they were hailed as the loftiest neon sign on the planet.

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The RCA sign atop 30 Rockefeller Plaza in 1968. The original letters were first illuminated in 1937.CreditAssociated Press

“The idea of changing it now to the Comcast Building,” said Carol H. Krinsky, a New York University art history professor and the author of “Rockefeller Center,” “strikes me the same way that the change to the G.E. Building name did: ‘I’m the new guy on the block and you are nothing anymore.’ ”

As proposed, more modest 12-foot-high light-emitting diode signs that spell Comcast in white uppercase letters would be installed on the broader north and south limestone exteriors, crowned by 10-foot-high NBC peacock logos. A 17-foot-high peacock would appear by itself on the western facade more or less facing Philadelphia. Measured in overall square feet, the new signs would be slightly more compact than the existing G.E. signs.

A new entrance and marquee would also be installed on Avenue of the Americas to promote “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.” (Among the other shows produced there is “Saturday Night Live,” one of whose alumni, Senator Al Franken, a Minnesota Democrat, opposes Comcast’s acquisition of Time Warner Cable.)

“Nothing has been finalized yet,” Cameron Blanchard, a spokeswoman for NBCUniversal, said of the proposed renovations.

The new sign and marquee were approved on Thursday by the local community board. The preservation commission scheduled a hearing for Tuesday on Comcast’s request.

Built by Artkraft Strauss and outfitted with General Electric equipment, the original signs faced north, south and east and symbolized nearly a century of corporate history. In 1919, the Radio Corporation of America was formed by General Electric, which owned it until 1930. RCA and its NBC radio network were among the first tenants of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, just a few months after the stock market crashed in 1929.

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A rendering shows 30 Rockefeller Center with a Comcast sign in place of the General Electric initials, which have been on the building since the 1980s.

“I haven’t heard anyone call it the G.E. Building except people who are new to New York City,” Professor Krinsky said. “The building is really, really the RCA Building, because the Radio Corporation of America saved Mr. Rockefeller’s financial neck by entering the project.”

The building was renamed for G.E. in 1988, two years after the company reacquired RCA. That same year, G.E. sold WNBC-AM, which left Rockefeller Center’s Radio City devoid of radio.

RCA’s original sans-serif initials, outlined in amber helium-filled tubes, endured until 1969, when a sleeker red neon version was introduced. Because Rockefeller Center was declared an official city landmark in 1985, General Electric’s request to replace the RCA rooftop sign provoked some resistance.

“The perfect solution would have Comcast management buy the rights to the RCA trademark, change the name of their company to RCA and return the original sign to the top of what always was, and always will be, the RCA Building,” said Daniel Okrent, author of “Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center.”

Peg Breen, the president of the New York Landmarks Conservancy, said that since the sign had been changed before, the odds are that the commission will approve another change. “I just hope it’s a tasteful sign,” she said.

“If it’s the G.E. Building now and the owners want to change it to Comcast, O.K., I say with a sigh,” Professor Krinsky said, “because it’s still not going back to being the RCA Building.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A20 of the New York edition with the headline: Comcast Seeking to Replace G.E.’s Initials Atop 30 Rock. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe